Gaddafi speaks to Yusuf M. Adamu: member of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Social Science Academy of Nigeria Laureate, poet, novelist, critic, blogger and photographer, and a professor of medical geography at the Bayero University Kano. They discuss Prof. Adamu's work on maternal health and other academic matters, but also engage with his work as a poet and author - both in English and Hausa. They raise questions about what Nigerian youth should be taught, who gets to set the intellectual agenda in Nigerian academia, how writing can change the world, why gender equity is important, and how important female readership is to northern Nigerian literature.